


Tuesday/Thursday

by brieflyshystarfish



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Swan Queen - Freeform, Swan Queen Week, Swan Queen Week Summer 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:36:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7781803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflyshystarfish/pseuds/brieflyshystarfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Henry teaches his mothers a thing or two about learning new things.<br/>Regina and Emma are married. Married is sexy.</p><p>Written for Swan Queen Week #7 Summer 2016. Prompt: Insecurities</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuesday/Thursday

___

“I’m just not sure,” Emma said, leaning back on her haunches, eyeing the canvas with visible concern. “He said happy trees.”

“It’s okay, Ma. You’ll get this,” Henry said. He reached his hand out to touch the top of her head. He liked when he could reach her, and it reminded him of when he’d first met her, wanting to climb over her like she was his playground. They were nearing the same height now.

She put her hand on his and squeezed. “Thanks, kid. It’s not that serious.”

“Uh huh,” Henry said. “Just, I don’t know. Maybe … ease up on the green?” He dubiously eyed the tubes of paint scattered around her, then the streaks of paint somehow on her cheeks and wrists and forearms.

“Ease up, huh?” but Emma’s focus had been renewed and she was barely listening to Henry at this point, who, with a sigh and a smile, heaved himself up to walk out.

Regina stood at the doorway of their living room, illuminated in a shaft of light, and Henry smiled at her, brighter, and she smiled back at him, and he said, “It’s okay, Mom, go in,” and for the life of her, she could not figure out why she hesitated, or how her son knew her well enough to know how sometimes Emma still made her nervous enough to stop at a doorway. Hell, they were married now. When Henry exited, she forced herself forward.

“Hey,” Regina said.

“Hey,” Emma said, her eyes narrowed, viciously dabbing paint on a corner.

Regina waited. Emma turned to her, eyes glinting. “Hey,” she said, softer. “Regina, I’m terrible at this.”

Regina grinned, looking at her wife’s hands, the paint on her cheeks. “Not terrible. Just–-practicing.”

“Terrible. This is–-” Emma sighed now, and her shoulders lowered a bit as she clasped the brush in her lap. “You know I sucked at school. This is way harder than it should be.” She bit her lip and raised her face. “I’m smart–I can do things–Clearly. But this kind of thing-–” she gestured limply at the paint-spattered canvas, defeat written all over her face. “This maybe wasn’t a good idea.”

“Emma, it’s paint. You’ve slayed a dragon, lifted curses, and married an evil queen. Why is paint winning?”

Emma grimaced, then smiled. Regina stepped closer and tipped Emma’s chin up to her. Regina brushed her knuckles lightly along the side of Emma’s face, and Emma’s eyes fluttered closed, and her breathing steadied. “You’re beautiful,” Regina murmured, and kissed her lightly on Emma’s closed lips. Emma hummed and Regina leaned back to study her, her tone growing a bit fiercer. “Emma. I brought you a beer. Have it. Relax. Enjoy this. Learning can be fun.”

Emma’s eyes flew open, hearing the challenge in Regina’s voice, and she smiled again. “Stay a little with me, Regina.”

“I have to leave for practice,” she said, quirking up her brow. “I have my own paint to slay.”

Emma grinned now, and said, “Have it your way,” and clicked Bob Ross back on. His voice, Regina knew, was soothing, but this was Emma’s challenge: how to learn a thing slowly, with progression. How there is nothing on the line and still the thing could be learned.

Regina lingered a moment more, then picked up her duffel bag from the hallway and left.

____

The gym was an hour outside of Storybrooke, and it smelled terrible. Nobody knew her here. Here, she was just a tiny woman with barely any makeup on who showed up twice a week, wrapped her hands in long strips of cloth, and made her rounds. Jump roping first, which she was terrible at, but whatever. Sometimes she skipped it and ran hard on the treadmill instead, pushing herself on speed and hills. Then shadowboxing, either in the corner by the mirrors or up, if it was free, in the ring itself, feeling the bounce and spring below her feet, which gave her courage as much as it frightened her to be in the center, so much more visible than she would be otherwise. Then, and only then, after she was already worn out, her training would begin. She’d find her coach, who was always ready, smiling, but as serious as she was.

She liked him–and she did whatever he told her to do–combinations on the bag, or strength training, or, soon enough, sparring.

The timer beeped every three minutes, paused for a minute of rest, and then began again. Regina liked this, likes how there was a metronome for everybody. She quirked her lips at herself, catching sight of her wet hair and flushed cheeks in the mirrors. Who knew the evil queen was a little socialist at heart.

Initially, everybody paid her attention, but by now, even three weeks in, nobody cared. She kept to herself and followed instructions. When she entered that day, Regina saw her coach standing at the opposite end of the gym with a younger man, the student’s body ropy and steel and cables, his eyes young and soft, practicing a difficult combination again and again until the student’s body was slicked in sweat and the coach’s eyes were gentle and proud on him. Regina looked at them, and felt the yes that passed from teacher to student and back again when the combination was delivered flawlessly over and over again.

Regina never thought, in one million years, that she would find herself boxing, anonymous, just another of the handful of women in there, initially clumsy, terrible at her bag work, slow on her feet, and hesitant to get in the ring, at all.

But now she was learning how to fight: fight honest. And become strong, in her own body. And she loved it, and that was the hardest part. To continue to reconcile and acknowledge all of these disparate and contradictory threads in her. Wasn’t she raised better than this? To be in a stinking gym full of stinking men (mostly), being told what to do? Being seen as she failed, again and again?

Oh, but the joy. The joy of this. The total surrender. The incremental progress.

In some ways, maybe, her end of the deal they’d struck was much harder than Emma’s. Hers required a commute, money down, more equipment, to be thrust into an altogether foreign environment, and theoretically, to be publicly humiliated every time she entered the gym. She was bad at this, at least now, beginning.

But she wasn’t. Humiliated. Instead she was learning something else: to try to excel, for herself only, in a room full of strangers, who as the days passed, became more and more real to her. Nobody wanted to dominate her or ridicule or criticize her. That was internal–those voices, now, at this point in her life, were hers alone. And every time she showed up, they released her a little bit.

And the sweat and the soreness? She loved it. Her heart was light every time she entered, and when she got home, body exhausted, sweat everywhere, she felt–normal. Human. All herself.

And those nights, gathering Emma up into her arms and then falling asleep, she was afraid to say things out loud, things like: this is perfect and I am happy, wondering always if the saying it meant somebody would come take it from her. So she hummed softly, and made love to her wife, or lay there beside her, glowing, shining, in love with every piece of what life had finally offered to her.

____

Henry made dinner those summer nights, the Tuesdays and Thursdays when his mothers are off Learning Things. And as always, Henry is how it all started.

“I want to learn how to cook,” he had said. It had been January.

Both women looked at him. Regina spoke first. “I could teach you.”

“You could teach me some stuff but there’s a lot of stuff I want to learn, Mom.” He looked at her pointedly. “Like fish. Like stuff you really don’t like.”

Emma laughed out loud, then turned to Regina. “Kid’s old enough to be in the kitchen. You won’t chop off any fingers, will you?”

“No.” He beamed, suddenly looking younger than his age. Emma smiled back.

Regina said, “There’s some basic safety and–-do you even know how to boil water?”

“Well–” Henry hesitated. “Kinda. No-–” and Regina looked at him, a little too smugly. “It’s also–” He paused, chewing his lip.

Moms waited.

“Go on, Henry,” Regina said.

“I want to learn how to do something–by myself. Like I get–-I don’t know, babied here. If we were in the Enchanted Forest–I’d be–doing more dangerous things. Probably,” he added hastily, as Regina’s mouth tightened in a firm line. “I would be allowed to cook,” he finished, a note of exasperation entering his voice.

“Okay,” said Regina.

“Okay?” asked Henry and Emma, in unison.

She pursed her lips again. “Yes,” she said slowly. “You’re right, Henry. But you need to learn from someone. Maybe Granny would take you on–as an apprentice. You could ask her. Then when you are ready to do this on your own–you can fly solo. Here.” She leaned back and took a sip of cider. “Okay?”

Henry nodded enthusiastically and seriously. “Yes. I’ll ask her tomorrow.”

So he did, and Granny said yes, and Henry started off by spending his Saturdays at the diner, early, first cleaning up Granny’s kitchen, learning how to really wash the counters down, then learning how to clean the knives, and the machines, then Granny taught him how to properly chop vegetables and yes, how to boil water, and when he’d mastered those amd a handful of other simple things she graduated him to mixing batters and timing the food in the oven. And by April Henry was going after school three, sometimes four times a week to help with the evening rush, and by May, Granny was paying him, something small, and also in food, because Henry had earned it and more.

But then one afternoon Henry had an idea, and asked, “Granny, could you pay me another way, for my moms?” and the old woman had bent down a little and Henry cupped his hands around her ear and made his request, and she smiled at him with such tenderness and said, “Yes, Henry. Of course. They will be so proud of you.”

So that’s how Regina and Emma took a booth together one June evening, and Henry came out of the kitchen, breathless, happy, and said, “You’re hungry, right?”

And they smiled widely at him and Emma gripped Regina’s fingers under the table because this happy being was their Kid.

When Henry brought out dinner, this is what he brought: seared scallops. A mushroom risotto, which, he quickly assured Emma, had “so much cheese, Ma, you’ll love it.” Two small cuts of steak, one seared and left fairly bloody for Regina, the other cooked through for Emma. A kale and spinach salad with thin slices of fruit–-papaya? Thick slices of tomato on the side.

They stared up at him, Regina a beat longer than Emma, who picked up her fork and waved it at Henry before pointing it at her plate. “Magician,” she said, grinning.

Regina’s eyes filled and Henry, suddenly shy, shuffled his feet and said, glancing back at the kitchen to where Granny stood, mirroring same look of tenderness etched on Regina’s face, “Don’t cry, Mom.”

And Emma put both arms out for Regina and Henry who climbed in, and Emma kissed them both on their heads, and Henry said, still a little nervous, “This shouldn’t get cold, okay?”

“Kid, you made this? By yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Everything? Did you–”

“He did it all himself. I made a modified menu tonight for everyone else so Henry could have the run of the kitchen. It was what he asked for,” Granny said from the kitchen door, shrugging her shoulders. “To be given these ingredients. To make this for you.”

Moms looked at him again and Henry squirmed uncomfortably, grinning. “Eat!” he instructed.

And they did. In silence, mostly, except when one or the other would lift their head to praise. Delicious. Henry held himself together until they finished, nearly squirming in his chair with joy as he realized how good his food actually was.

“So…” Henry began, eyes glinting. “About our kitchen.”

Regina smiled at him, fully. “All yours,” she said.

Emma winked at him. “Great job, kid.”

He flushed with pleasure. “One more thing,” he said, and Granny emerged at the same moment with four small bowls of ice cream, reserving one for herself at the counter. “Cinnamon apple,” he grinned wickedly. “Because … blended family.”

Regina laughed out loud, and Emma shot a glance at her that was so utterly adoring that Henry would have rolled her eyes if he wasn’t so completely pleased with himself.

“What was it like?” Emma asked, gesturing at the plates in front of them. “Learning how to do this. You didn’t really talk a whole lot about it.”

Henry thought for a moment and took a bite of ice cream. “I liked it,” he said simply. “I wanted it and Granny was really good. I hated the boring stuff I had to do at the beginning because I didn’t see the point, and just wanted to be making things already,” and Regina directed a look at Emma, as if to say, I wonder where he got that from, and Henry continued. “But I learned it was necessary. Like, um, learning how to clean back there,” and now he ducked his head under Regina’s pleased grin and Emma’s open mouth, “chopping things over and over until I got it right, learning to sautee, things like that.”

“Well, this certainly has been a worthwhile experiment,” Regina said, softly considering her son. “So what, now we send you to off to culinary school?”

Henry hesitated, a smile spreading over his face. “No. I wanna be–I want to be a writer. You know that, mom,” and Regina nodded. “No, it’s more like, I want to figure out how to do more things. It feels stupid to think I can only do one. Or two. Anyway, writers need to know how to do things. Like you guys,” and he wrinkled his face in the way he had done since he was little, focusing, getting his words right. “Maybe it’s something we could all do. Pick something. It would make us,” and he gestured again, like Emma did, when she sort of lacked words to convey what she wanted to say, “better. Happier.”

Two sets of serious eyes, one blue and one a rich brown, regarded him solemnly. “But Henry,” Emma said, a nervous edge to her voice, “we are–aren’t we? Happy?”

“Yes, of course, Emma–Ma,” and he heaved with impatience. “Yes,” softer now, and this was exactly Regina in Henry, going on fourteen years of raising him to be–what? Strong? Clear. “Try it,” he said. “The stuff that makes us what we are–it doesn’t all have to be stuff you don’t…choose. Some of it,” and here entered the stubborn lilt to his voice, which belonged equally to all three people sitting in that booth. “Some of it can be just for you. Some of it can be what you choose and see, see if it–if it works. For you.”

Henry’s words suspended in the air between them for a moment before Emma broke the silence with a laugh. “Ok. I always wanted to learn how to paint. There was this girl–” and she gazed ruefully at Regina for a moment, “this girl in one of my foster homes who was a painter. She would totally dissolve into this world, in her corner of the room, with her brushes and her paper. And I wasn’t–jealous,” and her brow furrowed, teasing out the emotion, face brightening when she found it–“it was like an option, like she was showing me another way I could be. Anyway,” she continued, digging into her ice cream, “I would like to learn that. How to paint. But something simple. Nothing fancy.” Satisfied, she leaned back in her seat and looked at Regina, who just looked … puzzled.

Henry leaned in. “Mom, think. What have you always wanted to do but haven’t?”

Regina looked down, smoothing her skirt, some slight panic clouding her eyes for a moment but gone as rapidly as it had arisen. Emma reached for her hand. “Hey,” she said gently. “It’s okay, right, Henry?”

“No. Yes. Mom. There’s something, there has to be,” he insisted.

“I–Give me a little time, okay?” Regina turned her face up, her eyes practiced and level. “I’m in. Just let me–-let me figure it out.”

Henry looked at her quizzically, searching her face, and then smiled, and when he did, Regina exhaled.

——

Regina felt Emma’s eyes on her when they were changing for bed later that night.

This had still not gotten old–the incredible intimacy of these moments, normal moments, that she got to have with Emma, every night, climbing into their bed together, every day rising together, taking the day in together. Yet. Sometimes she longed to hide. To have a few moments without witness. Was that it, though? No. She knew it wasn’t. That she would be feeling this way–as if worlds were colliding in her chest, as if she was brimming with emotion-–with or without Emma near her.

Regina tilted her head back as the tears rose.

Emma was beside her in an instant. “Hey, hey,” was all she said, and sat down, on the bed, Emma half-dressed and Regina still in her day’s suit, clutching her bedclothes in her hand. “What’s going on?”

But Regina only shook her head, closed her eyes to staunch her tears, mute and dizzy with feeling, not wanting to cry, knowing she would if she spoke. Emma reached for Regina’s hand, and something hot and dark flared in Regina, and she lifted their tangled fingers to her mouth and ran her tongue over Emma’s index finger, nipping at the knuckle, then took the tip of Emma’s finger into her warm mouth.

Emma inhaled sharply, and with a wave she soundproofed the room and descended on Regina.

They made love furiously, fast, deep, Regina dredging Emma’s mouth, plumbing her body, all liquid and sweat and heat and teeth until the unbearable build she’d created in Emma released, Emma’s body wracking above her as she lay her tongue fierce then soft against her center, and then Regina lifted herself, pressed her body flush against Emma’s, clung to Emma, finding then refusing to disentangle their tongues, while Emma’s fingers worked a deep and arching magic between Regina’s legs, relentless, matching Refina’s pace until Regina convulsed over her, swimming and needing and spent and clinging to her, slicked with sweat and desire and love.

Regina came back into herself, slowly, first feeling Emma breathe below her, feeling Emma’s arm wrapped around her waist and Emma’s other hand combing sweaty hair out of her eyes and tracing soft figures over her cheeks and lips.

Regina knew what she would see when she opened her eyes, and this is what it was: Emma’s eyes, wide and soft and wondering and patient and, as always, simultaneously understanding everything and being curious about everything too. This is how Regina knew they, together could last. It was because they, after these few terribly difficult years, could still wonder at each other, turn each other over in their gazes and continue to find something new.

Regina spoke first, so quietly. “Emma, what if this is all I am?”

“What, amazing sex? Hot? Full of kisses?” she heard the bemused smile in Emma’s voice.

“No. Reacting. Always reacting.” She fell silent. Emma said nothing but resumed stroking Regina’s face.

“Always–-making choices when my back is up against the wall. That’s how I’ve grown. That’s how I learn.” Her voice grew fiercer, laced with a bitter possessiveness over every word. “I can’t learn something new. 

This–” she tapped Emma’s shoulder, and she flung her hand out to the wall, intended as a gesture to represent all of it–the house, Henry, their life, even Storybrooke. “-–I shouldn’t even have this. Asking for more is-–”

“Is what, Regina?”

“Selfish! And … wrong.” She bit down on this last word and felt Emma kiss her temple.

“Stop it,” Emma said. “Stop. You have us. You deserve us. We deserve you. Stop punishing yourself, Regina. You are allowed to want things. You are allowed to choose. Maybe,” and she brightened again, “this is what you can learn to do. Make choices. Want things.”

Regina shook her head No and Emma sighed, wrapping both arms around her. “Yes.”

They fell asleep this way, or, Emma did, slack and breathing deeply below her. Regina lay awake with her fear, sourcing it and isolating the threads. Emma made her brave like this because she believed in her. So easily. So Regina had learned–was learning–that the darkness within her wouldn’t break her. Even if she looked at it. Even if she tried to understand it.

By morning, she knew.

Maybe, maybe, she’d gotten three or four hours of sleep. But she was up first, made juice, made breakfast, and was waiting when her bleary-eyed family--seduced by smells–-for Henry it was bacon and for Emma it was coffee-–tumbled into the kitchen, one after the next, pressing kisses to her hair and cheek and seating themselves.

She let them wake up, munch contentedly for a bit before she cleared her throat. “So.”

“Mom, you decided?” asked Henry, pouring himself some juice. Regina looked at him affectionately, this child–her child–who never missed a beat.

“Yes,” she started, trailed off, and then spoke firmly. “I want to learn how to be strong without magic. I want my body strong. I want to learn how to fight, really fight.” She took a breath. “I’m going to learn how to box.”

Henry grinned. Emma just stared at her, puzzled. Emma motioned to Regina’s face. “But like, you could get hit. What if you accidentally–-”

Regina cut her off swiftly. “When I was with Leopold–” she darted a glance ar Henry–“I, well, I forgot that I was mine. And yesterday,” she now looked up at Emma, carefully, “I realized I had been hiding from myself. And maybe it’s not hard. Maybe I just need to throw myself into something scary and uncomfortable but safe, to–to really know the difference.”

“The difference between what, Regina?” and Emma was so soft as she pronounced her name. Listening now, really listening.

“The difference between myself and others. Where I start and where they end. I want,” and Regina shook her head. “I want to be free.”

And Henry looked at her, mirroring her softness at the diner with him, and Emma picked up Regina’s hand and kissed it and kissed it until Regina rolled her eyes at her, her serious face breaking into a smile, and Henry muttered, “Oh my God. Stop.”

—-

Emma’s trees were never quite trees, but they were, despite her fear to the contrary, happy. And Regina kept training and sparring and learned to protect her face and fuck up and try again, to show up, to put one foot in front of the other and go home and fit right into the arms of those who loved her the most. 

And it was good enough. And she was good enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading. :)


End file.
